


Rest Easy

by WhoopsISpilledTheGay



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26506558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoopsISpilledTheGay/pseuds/WhoopsISpilledTheGay
Summary: Jaskier / Dandelion has a nightmare. Geralt reads him back to sleep.Oneshot/Drabble
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 3
Kudos: 62





	Rest Easy

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta-ed. I wrote this in a soft fever. Enjoy.

Geralt gently shut the inn room door behind him, careful to keep quiet as he tip-toed through the double-bedded room. He had just returned from the alderman’s house, having collected a good sack full of crowns for his slaying of the leshen hurting the forests around the small town. His best friend and compatriot Jaskier was sleeping soundly on his side of the room, the one furthest from the door, of course. Geralt always took the closer so nobody would sneak up on them in the night. 

It wasn’t until after his swords had come off his back and his armor was set in a neatly folded stack that he fully noticed the whimpers coming from the occupied bed. Sniffling, too, it seemed. Dandelion must be coming down with something. 

Carefully, the witcher moved to the bed, looming over the sleeping body to get a glimpse of his face, which was turned towards the wall. Glistening tears greeted him, dancing down the bard’s face and creating grooves on his pale cheeks. Alarm bells sounded in Geralt’s head as he automatically reached down to touch the bard’s shoulder. With a jerk and a yelp, Dandelion awoke. 

“Wh- Geralt! What- what is it?” The bard asked, obviously panicked and working to wipe away his tears. 

“You’re sniffing,” the witcher stated, his gruff voice softer than usual.

“I am? Oh dear, I’m sorry, shall I get another room? Some cold tonic?” Dandelion started listing off, propping himself up on his elbows in a move to get out of the bed.

Geralt simply pushed him back down using the hand lying on his shoulder. “You’re not sick. I would smell it,” he sighed a little, his lower jaw moving slightly like it normally did when he was deep in thought. “Stay here.”

“I- well, if you say so,” the bard frowned in confusion, accepting his position and watching the witcher walk back out of the room. Slowly, his footsteps in the hall grew fainter, then once he descended the stairs, they were gone. 

Some minutes later, hell if the bard knew how long, the same footsteps returned. As they grew louder, the slight clink of porcelain accompanied them. The scent of -what was that, chocolate?- filled the dusty room and replaced the previous aromas of sawdust and sweat. 

The toe of a boot knocked open the door, and Geralt followed it, a small tin platter in his hands. It held a mug of piping hot cocoa and a small sauce bowl of assorted nuts. Mainly almonds, as the witcher heard somewhere that they helped humans sleep. 

“Needed a snack, did you?” The bard chuckled sleepily, having settled into a daze while waiting. 

Geralt responded by setting the tin platter on the bedside table and holding the bowl out for the scholar. Curiously, he accepted it. 

“You had a nightmare,” the witcher inferred, clearing his throat when his words got caught. Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed near Dandelion's middle.

Giving in, the bard let out a small huff as he cracked an almond in between his teeth. He chewed before responding. “I did indeed, dear. It was _them_ again. Pitiful, I know. What has it been, months? Half a year already? My subconscious thinks it’s funny to bring up old baggage.” 

The witcher listened intently, letting the bard spill out whatever he needed to in his sleep drunk state. He replied once or twice with a grunt. 

“The fucking garden. Always the garden. The _Countess de Stael_ ,” he mocked, “always meets me in the garden. Then what does she tell me? Well- she doesn’t _say_ anything, but she does grow two heads and a surely unhealthy number of fingers. And her _claws_ , god forbid I don’t wake up before they’re scratching down my shoulders and running through my hair.”

Geralt let this go on for a bit, switching out the now-empty bowl for the porcelain mug of cocoa halfway through. Once the bard seemed to be repeating phrasing and taking more frequent sips of his drink, Geralt cleared his throat. 

“Where’s your ‘History of The World’?” He asked quietly, getting up from his seat on the edge of the bed to rummage through Dandelion’s half-open satchel. And though he sputtered at first from the lack of privacy, he directed the wolf to the right pocket. 

“Did my ranting bore you that much? Do you really prefer a history lesson over listening wholly to my nightmares? I don’t blame you, I would too-”

“No. I’m reading to you. T’ get you to sleep,” Geralt flipped through the chapters to the one marked with a magenta ribbon. He started at the top of the page, sitting back down on the edge of the bed as he read.

Dandelion, eyes wide, listened in a stupor. This had certainly never happened before. He didn’t dislike it, no, not at all. In fact, Geralt’s reading voice was so calming he was sure that he would never sleep, just to listen to this a bit longer. 

As he sipped the last of his cocoa and set it on the tin platter, the bard pulled the sheets up to his chin and snuggled back onto his side. His gaze rested on Geralt’s profile. His amber eyes shone in the dim candlelight, the blacks of them blown up to read better in the darkness. The way his lips moved, just enough to form the words but no more to enunciate them any more than what was necessary, was entrancing. 

The witcher noticed this after he passed the sixth page of tiny printed text and glanced over to the bard, who looked as if he was in the presence of an angel. He didn’t stop reading to him though. This was to put him to sleep, and Geralt didn’t want to lose the slight droop of Dandelion’s eyelids because his throat was getting a little scratchy.

They finished the chapter together, the bard eventually letting his eyes close completely and his breaths grow shallow. At these signs, the white-haired one closed the text quietly, marking their place with the same ribbon and putting it away. He slunk back to his side of the room, dressing down to his smallclothes and going to blow out the few candles on his bedside table. 

In the pitch-black room, a small, breathy voice was picked up over Geralt’s shifting and shuffling for comfort in the twin bed. “Thank you, dear… I can rest easy with you.”

Geralt slept with warmth in his chest that night.


End file.
